Hawk-in-Chief: Obama Courts Israel Supports by Getting Tough on Iran

His Sunday speech to AIPAC was part of a three-part campaign to soothe Israel's leadership, deter Iran's, and keep Republicans from winning over Jewish voters.

Obama speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington / Reuters

In a rousing election-year speech to the powerful Jewish lobby in
Washington, President Obama on Sunday sought to eliminate any remaining
daylight between the United States and Israel, especially on the threat
from Iran. In so doing he may have succeeded both at firing up Jewish
voter support--and at bringing America closer to another war.

Directly confronting the threat from Tehran in a more aggressive way
than he ever has before, Obama declared that a nuclear-armed Iran
equally violates Israel's interests and "the national security interests
of the United States." He tried to remove any remaining doubts about
his willingness to use force himself and to green-light, under the right
circumstances, Israel's own right to use it, even while urging Israeli
leaders to observe a timetable that would delay action until after the
U.S. election in November. Deploying important code words familiar to
AIPAC and its supporters, Obama said Iran's leaders "should not doubt
Israel's sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is
required to meet its security needs."

Toward the end of his speech, which drew several standing ovations,
Obama also once again addressed perhaps the central doubt in the mind of
visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will meet the president
at the White House on Monday: whether America will act militarily if
Israel cannot seriously damage or destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities
on its own.

Obama delivered something close to the guarantee that Israelis and
many American Jewish supporters of Israel were looking for: a pledge
that if diplomacy, sanctions and pressure don't work, he will attack
Iran's nuclear facilities. "I will take no options off the table, and I
mean what I say. That includes all elements of American power," Obama
said. "A political effort aimed at isolating Iran; a diplomatic effort
to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is
monitored; an economic effort to impose crippling sanctions; and, yes, a
military effort to be prepared for any contingency."

Obama also attempted to clarify that he is not pursuing "a policy of
containment." The president said his only interest is "to prevent Iran
from obtaining a nuclear weapon ... And as I've made clear time and again
during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force
when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests."

The initial reaction from Israel supporters was positive. "The
President said some welcome things today on Iran, including making clear
that he has a policy of prevention not containment, explicitly pointing
to a military option, delivering an extended explanation of why it is
in America's interest to stop Iran, and in particular making explicitly
clear that Israel has a sovereign right to defend themselves as they see
fit," said Josh Block, AIPAC's former spokesman.

Despite the critical national security issues at stake, Obama's
address must be seen largely as a re-election campaign speech. He urged
AIPAC (and by extension the U.S. Jewish voters) to ignore GOP slurs on
his record "not backed up by the facts," saying that "the U.S.-Israel
relationship is simply too important to be distorted by partisan
politics. Using a phrase that he first delivered to The Atlantic
in an interview published Friday, Obama said "there should not be a
shred of doubt by now: when the chips are down, I have Israel's back."

But after delivering those more martial pledges, Obama then tried to
tamp down what he called "loose talk of war. Over the last few weeks,
such talk has only benefited the Iranian government, by driving up the
price of oil, which they depend upon to fund their nuclear program. For
the sake of Israel's security, America's security, and the peace and
security of the world, now is not the time for bluster; now is the time
to let our increased pressure sink in, and to sustain the broad
international coalition that we have built." Obama laid out a timetable
for obtaining a diplomatic commitment from Iran to negotiate away its
nuclear program that seemed to take him well beyond November. "Sanctions
are continuing to increase, and this July - thanks to our diplomatic
coordination - a European ban on Iranian oil imports will take hold," he
said.

The president, who is under regular attack from Republican candidates
for supposed weakness in defense of Israel, also sought to put his
administration's early missteps behind him. "As you examine my
commitment, you don't just have to count on my words. You can look at my
deeds," he said. "The fact is, my administration's commitment to
Israel's security has been unprecedented. Our military and intelligence
cooperation has never been closer. Our joint exercises and training have
never been more robust. Despite a tough budget environment, our
security assistance has increased every year. We are investing in new
capabilities. We're providing Israel with more advanced technology - the
type of products and systems that only go to our closest friends and
allies."

Obama remains deeply mistrusted in
Israel, and as part of his effort to assuage those concerns he continued
to cultivate Israeli President Shimon Peres, who has become his
greatest advocate. Speaking just before Obama, Peres affirmed that
U.S.-Israeli "security cooperation has reached its highest level" under
this president, with a record $3.1 billion in aid a year, and declared
to applause that in Obama "we have a friend in the White House." In his
speech, the president announced that later this spring he will invite
Peres to the White House to present him with America's highest civilian
honor - the presidential Medal of Freedom.

At the beginning of his tenure, the president stunned Israel and its
supporters in the American Jewish community by attempting to strong-arm
the Israelis into halting settlements on the West Bank. Then, last year,
Obama sought to blunt a Palestinian effort to win a U.N. General
Assembly vote unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state by declaring,
in a speech, that "the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based
on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps." Even though such a
position has been privately adopted in peace negotiations going back to
Camp David, Netanyahu was furious and alarmed by Obama's decision to
offer it up unilaterally while getting nothing in return.

On the campaign trail, Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rick
Santorum have both come close to promising U.S. preemptive war against
Iran--and soon--if elected. At the most recent GOP presidential debate in
Arizona, Romney said that for him, military action wouldn't be
merely "an option." Obama, Romney said, has "made it clear through his
administration and almost every communication we've had so far that he
does not want Israel to take action, he opposes military action. He
should have instead communicated to Iran that we are prepared, that we
are considering military options. They're not just on the table. They
are in our hand."

Despite the all-out effort being made by the White House to talk down
the Israelis and muster political support among critical Jewish voters
at home, some daylight remains between U.S. and Israeli positions. In
particular, while Obama says he will do what is necessary to prevent a
"nuclear bomb," Israelis still tend to define their own "red line" as
preventing Iranian bomb-making "capability." "With the backing of the
U.S. military, [Obama] has stood firm behind weaponization rather than
weapons capability as the red line," said Washington commentator Trita
Parsi. As a result, Parsi insists, the differences between the U.S. and
Israel remain "profound."

Republicans will no doubt continue to assert that the daylight is
still there. As GOP advisors Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie put it in recent
article in Foreign Policy that attempts to identify Obama's
vulnerabilities as commander in chief: "In part because of how he has
mishandled the Iranian threat, Obama has lost much political and
financial support in the American Jewish community. His approach to
Israel must be presented as similarly weak and untrustworthy. The
Republican candidate must make clear the existential threat to Israel
from a nuclear-armed Iran -- not only because it will lead to a better
policy, but also because it will reduce the president's support among
this key voting bloc in the critical battleground states of Florida,
Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania."

It also remains to be seen how Iran will react to this combustible
mix of intensifying U.S. domestic politics and the perception of a
heightening security threat from Tehran. Iran continues to deny that it
is pursuing nuclear weapons, but experts suggest its position is only
hardening. In parliamentary elections on Sunday, loyalists in support of
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei trounced candidates in support of
incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has displayed an
occasional willingness to negotiate with the West. The results
delivered a tough message to "the arrogant powers bullying us," Khamenei
said in a statement.

And so for Obama, two key questions will dominate in the coming
months: Will Netanyahu take him at his word and delay a planned attack
on Iran that some security experts suggest could come before the U.S.
election? And will the president's politics-fueled new hard line prod
the Iranians second-guess their approach--or will it only commit Obama to
another war he really doesn't want?

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